Clear Vision and Clear Vision 2

Last year, I tried for a while to write a review of Clear Vision, a sickeningly addictive iPhone title that I ultimately didn’t write about. Part of that is the game is fairly one-dimensional, takes only thirty minutes to beat, and I feel that praising a game that involves violently assassinating unsuspecting victims will get me listed on some type of government watch list. Since then, a teeny tiny bit of DLC was released for the original, and this month a sequel hit, and I can’t turn it down.

So here’s the concept: there’s a world of stick figures, and you’re an assassin for hire. Someone will slip a request for murder under your door. You then murder that person. Rinse and repeat around twenty or so times each game. Murders are typically done with a rifle, but occasionally you’ll interrogate someone in a car crusher, or make a murder look like an accident. At the start of each game, you simply line the person up in your sight and fire. Later, you have to account for distance and wind resistance. It’s the same thing over and over again, but it never gets old. In fact, the splatter of blood and slumping body are pretty dang satisfying to watch and an indication of a job well done.

Hold on. A self-realization and reflection moment just overcame me.

I make no apologies for the fact that I had a good time playing these games. I would have had a better time, if not for some glaring technical issues. No matter which iDevice I was using, both games tended to crash. Last year, the original Clear Vision, at times, crashed nearly every mission. This year, Clear Vision 2 not only crashed on both my new iPhone and iPod, but would also have the occasionally stunted-frame rate that would require me to completely exit out of the game and reboot it. Obviously this can be patched out, since I had to go through the original Clear Vision all the way from the fucking beginning just to play a measly five-minutes worth of DLC, and the game never once failed. Crashes are not infrequent on iOS, for whatever reason. This is one of the major reasons why I quit reviewing iPhone games. On Apple platforms, even major titles (your GTAs, Dead Spaces, and Angry Birds) crash if you so much as attempt to play them. I can’t really complain about indies doing so frequently. But it craps up the play experience. Clear Vision 2 was one of the worst offenders of this ever. I counted it out: the game had seven hard crashes and four instances of game-killing frame rate issues on my fifth gen iPhone alone, plus several more while attempting it on my iPod. Not even XBLIG puts up this big a fight when you attempt to use it.

I fucking HATED this mini-game in the sequel. It took me about twenty tries to get it right. I felt like an ignoramus.

If you can get past the crashes, Clear Vision is fun. You need both parts to get the full story, but they will only run you a combined $1.98. You can also play half of the first game (or fifth game, depending on how you look at it) for free online. Though there’s probably no harm in waiting a year to pick up Clear Vision 2, or at least waiting long enough for all the bugs to be cleaned up. I do recommend both, but remember something before each time you pull the trigger: stick figure dudes have stick figure families too.